A Pair of Jacks

by W. Craig Reed

During the Cold War, American submarines were often sent on covert espionage missions. Most were conducted well inside Soviet territorial waters. Many of these Special Operations were highly dangerous, and submariners often feared that they would never return home. Top scientists and engineers were instrumental in designing and troubleshooting highly-advanced weapons, sonar and fire control tracking systems that enabled submariners to accomplish these missions and stay alive. The following story was written for, but not included in the book Red November: Inside the Secret U.S. – Soviet Underwater War (William Morrow/HarperCollins, May 4, 2010).   

After the loss of the submarine USS Scorpion in May 1968, hostile confrontations between U.S. and Soviet submarines escalated. During the late 1960s, in an effort to gain intelligence and create “signature” databases that could be used to identify Soviet submarines, U.S. sub captains continued to trail Red Bear  submarines under an NSA espionage program called Holystone. Most of these missions required that sub drivers sneak within spitting distance of their prey. Serious collisions occurred. 

Just two days before the scheduled U.S./Soviet arms control talks in Helsinki, Finland, in mid-November 1969, the submarine USS Gato conducted a Holystone operation in the White Sea by monitoring a Soviet submarine en route to the Barents Sea. Based on faulty sonar input, the fire-control tracking party made an error in estimating the speed and range of the Hotel-class missile sub, resulting in a violent collision. The Soviet boat smacked the hull of the Gato at a ninety-degree angle, striking the heavy protective shielding around the nuclear reactor. The Gato’s tough plating prevented a hull breach, but the crew and equipment inside took a beating.Unaware that the Gato had been the culprit, the Soviet captain assumed his boat has struck an underwater seamount. He ordered his submarine to the surface to check for damage. Taking due precautions, he contacted his command who in turn sent ASW ships and planes into the area to search for unwanted visitors. The Gato spent the next two days dodging active sonar and warning depth charges while sneaking back into international waters in the Atlantic.

Admiral Sergey Gorshkov, after analyzing the acoustic data gathered during the hunt, surmised that a U.S. boat had been conducting espionage operations within Soviet territorial waters. Through official channels, he expressed outrage that the Americans dared spy on his country while feigning a desire to negotiate arms reductions. President Nixon heard the message loud and clear. On April 30, 1970, he promptly halted any further Holystone operations.Two days later, Admiral Eugene Wilkinson (the first skipper of the USS Nautilus), summoned Dr. Donald Ross to his office in Norfolk, Virginia. Ross entered the office and found a seat. 

Wilkinson turned from the window and said, “Remember me?”

Ross nodded. “Yes sir. We met when I rode the Nautilus years ago to install your new DEMON sonar suite.”

“That’s not all you did,” Wilkinson said.

“Sir?”

“You stole my money.”

Ross squirmed in his seat, trying to recall what the Admiral might be talking about. “I’m not sure I understand, sir.”

“You bested my ass in poker. Wiped me out. As I recall, I said I wouldn’t forget.” 

Ross swallowed a clump of saliva. “I…well, I…”

Wilkinson let out a laugh. “Relax, Dr. Ross, I’m just messing with you.”

Ross managed a sheepish grin. “Of course you are, sir.”

Wilkinson’s face returned to serious. “The real reason I brought you here is because our boats are collecting too damn much paint from the ass end of the Soviet subs we’re trailing.”

“I heard the rumors,” Ross said. Given the close connections he’d formed with submariners over the years while installing and upgrading sonar systems, Ross often heard more than he should through the “bubblehead grapevine.”

“President Nixon doesn’t like it,” Wilkinson said. “He’s stopped all Holystone operations until we can get the problem fixed. That’s where you come in.”

Ross lifted his left eyebrow. “Me, sir?”

“I need you to put together an expert team, get a handle on this thing and find a solution. Can you do that?”

“We’ll certainly do our best, sir,” Ross said. He had been serving the fleet on assignment with Bell Labs for quite a few years, troubleshooting the Navy’s SOSUS systems and fixing issues with submarine sonar equipment on behalf of his current employer, David Taylor labs. He already had an inkling of what the problem might be, but to find out for sure, he would need Wilkinson to use some of his clout.

As if anticipating such, Wilkinson said, “What do you need from me?”

“The keys to two new Sturgeon-class submarines,” Ross said.

“Damn, Dr. Ross,” Wilkinson groaned, “first you take my money and now you want my submarines?”

Ross nodded, said nothing.

“Alright,” Wilkinson said, “I’ll call your hand. But I’m going to raise you first. I need a fix within two weeks. If the Soviets find out they’ve got a free hall pass, this thing could get ugly.”

Ross’s jaw dropped. “Two weeks?”

“Consider this as your payback for beating me with a pair of Jacks.”

Outwardly, Ross remained calm. Inside, his stomach knotted. How could he possibly solve such a complex problem in just two weeks?

At the end of the meeting, the admiral handed Ross a small scrap of paper containing a handwritten number. “This is your ‘get out of jail free card,’” he said. “If any one gives you a ration of crap or questions your authority, you tell them to call me at home. I’ll set them straight.”

This time Ross’s smile was genuine. “I guess this where that ace in the hole beats a pair of Jacks?” 

The following day, Ross assembled his team at the pier in Charleston, South Carolina. He briefed them on the requirements and dubbed the assignment Project Herman, in memory of former Bell Labs team member, Herman Straub, who’d accompanied Ross on the Nautilus runs and then passed away a few years later. Ross contacted the skipper of the USS Whale (SSN 638) and asked him to steam at flank speed from New London down to Charleston. 

After the Whale arrived, the team outfitted the new Sturgeon-class submarine with special equipment to allow her to mimic the acoustic signature of a Soviet submarine. The USS Sunfish (SSN 649) pulled in a day later and the two attack subs headed to a remote location in the Bahamas, with Ross and team on board.For the next several days the Whale played mouse while the Sunfish played cat. The David Taylor team observed the game while conducting dozens of tests. After a week of non-stop analysis and several “close call” collisions, the David Taylor team returned to Charleston with the Sturgeon-class submarines. 

Ross spent the next several days examining the data with his team. Then light bulbs went off. Just as he’d originally suspected, the sonar jocks on U.S. boats were chasing shadows versus actual foes. The team finalized their report, which included charts, graphs, printouts and a typed analysis. Ross tucked the papers into his briefcase and boarded a plane to Norfolk. He strutted into Admiral Wilkinson’s office and pulled out his files.

“Well?” Wilkinson said.

“I have good news and bad news,” Ross said.

“Give me the good news first.” Ross handed Wilkinson a printout. “The good news is we figured our what’s wrong. Raytheon added a dual track retrofit into the BQQ-1 sonar suites years ago that included a stabilized automatic tracking feature that’s no so stabilized. The ATF Retrofit IIA affects the BQS-6A in Permit-class and 6B in Sturgeon-class boats. Now all these subs have surface bounce problems.”

“English, please,” Wilkinson said.

Ross held up his pen. “This is our submarine.” He grabbed a pencil from Wilkinson’s desk. “This is their submarine.” He brought the pen close in behind the pencil. “This is our submarine trailing their submarine.”

“Okay, I’m following,” Wilkinson said.

“The ATF retrofit added the ability to automatically lock on to the strongest signal coming from the contact. That improves bearing, range and depth information to help boat skippers get close enough to the other guy without colliding.”

“But the ATF has issues.”

“That’s right. Sometimes it thinks the surface is the strongest signal.”

“The surface?”

Ross sat the pencil back on the desk and held up the pen. “Here’s our sub.” He held his other hand palm down about six inches above and in front of the pen. “This is the surface of the ocean.” Ross traced an imaginary line with his hand from a point in front of the pen, where the Soviet sub might reside, up to his palm—representing the surface—and back down to the front of the pen, or the U.S. boat’s sonar dome. “Sound from the Soviet sub is sometimes bouncing off the ocean’s surface like this. Due to the nature of sound propagation in water, this can appear to be the strongest signal versus the one coming directly from the contact.”

Wilkinson leaned back in his chair. “I’ll be damned. So what does this mean, exactly?”

“It means,” Ross said as he taped the underside of his palm with a finger, “that we think the other guy is here, at a depth above us.” Ross circled the air at a point six inches below his palm. “In fact, the contact is actually here, at our same depth. That’s why our skippers are collecting paint samples from Soviet boats.”

“Can we fix this problem?”

“That’s the bad news. We can correct it on some of the boats, but that probably won’t get done until those submarines go in for overhauls. Also, the fix will work but it won’t be foolproof. Skippers will still need to be cautious, especially when up close and underneath targets. The reasons for this are too complex to get into.” Ross handed Wilkinson the typed report.

The admiral studied the document for several minutes and then said, “The President’s not going to like the cost, but if he wants to continue playing the Holystone espionage game, he’s just gonna have to ante up.”

“Nobody ever said this was a low stakes game,” Ross said.

“Nobody did,” Wilkinson said. 

On May 16, exactly two weeks after the assignment commenced, Admiral Wilkinson briefed President Nixon at the White House. Nixon choked on the price tag, but agreed to push for funding approval. With the Soviets improving the quality and quantity of their submarine fleet at an exponential clip, Holystone operations were too important to shelve, and the possibility of more collisions was too high to ignore.  At the instigation of Admiral Wilkinson, Dr. Donald Ross received the highest naval citation that can be awarded to a civilian. But despite Ross’s findings, retrofitting the entire submarine fleet would take years. In the meantime, collisions and near misses continued.

In the next edition of TrueThrills, we'll go back in time and behind the scenes where several submariners recall these deadly games of high-stakes poker in hair-raising detail.